A media information processing method includes obtaining media description information, where the media description information includes description information of at least two bitstreams corresponding to a first picture area, any one of the at least two bitstreams has an access point different in time from an access point of another bitstream in the at least two bitstreams, the at least two bitstreams are bitstreams obtained by separately encoding picture content of the first picture subarea, and time periods corresponding to the picture content separately encoded by the at least two bitstreams overlap, and determining, based on the media description information, a to-be-played first target bitstream, where the first target bitstream is one of the at least two bitstreams.